Saudade de Mim

Challenge #13

TALK ABOUT A COMMUNITY SPACE YOU LIKE. It doesn’t need to be your favorite, or the one where you spend the most time (although it certainly can be). Maybe it’s even one that you’ve barely visited. But talk about that space and how it helps support fannish community.

There are so many great communities here on dreamwidth, such as fancake, and so many others I could tout. But today I want to talk about socialshakespeare, a community that does audio-only cold readings of Shakespeare plays each month (*also a general note: the Shakespeare fandom on Tumblr is just fantastic, with amazing analysis and discourse).

I have not participated in a socialshakespeare reading yet, because: (a) time constraints; (b) utter lack of voice-acting talent; and (c) I'm chicken. But it's such a great, fun concept, and they often choose plays that are a bit more neglected -- performed less, not always on Shakespeare class syllabi, etc., which is cool. Here is a more detailed description of the community and here are the guidelines, with links to complete rules and expectations. Each month they announce the new play and there are sign-ups for which character part you want to read. They also post surveys so people can vote on the next play.

Maybe someday I will participate, lol. But for now, I'm passing the info along for others who might be interested because it sounds like so much fun.

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Challenge #11

In your own space, grant someone's wish from Challenge #5. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your own post with the wishes you granted if you feel comfortable doing so.

I did this already on the day of Challenge #5, so I'm considering this one done. Yeah, it's cheating a little, but it's been a day, lol.

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Challenge #9

Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

Road trip!!! This remains one of my favorite tropes/themes. Avatar: The Last Airbender is a great show all around, with terrific story writing, characters, and so many themes worth analyzing. But I also loved the traveling "road trip" aspect of it, and the way the main characters had adventures on Appa (the AtLA equivalent to on the road) as well as in the different places they landed.

Road trips and journeys feature in so many of my favorite classic movies, too, in all genres. It Happened One Night is a really fun romantic comedy in which the characters travel by bus then hitchhike, and get into all kinds of humorous situations on the way. The Searchers and True Grit (original and remake) are excellent westerns that use this trope. And of course, Hitchcock's great North by Northwest, though a thriller, features a chase halfway across the country by cars, train, cabs, and planes.

Of course there is always conflict and drama, and serious stuff going on in more serious movies, going on during the journeys. But I love the way the journeys bring out those conflicts and play a part in helping the characters resolve things and grow.

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Challenge #7

LIST THREE (or more) THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF. They don’t have to be your favorite things, just things that you think are good. Feel free to expand as much or as little as you want.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Also, feel free to entice engagement by giving us a preview of what your post covers.

* I have a strong sense of who I am as a person and I'm comfortable with myself.

* I always try to be kind, but I also won't let anyone take advantage of me.

* I'm really, really good at my job, which has allowed me to pretty much do whatever I want when I need it. Need to work from home, even though it's an in-office day? It's fine because everyone I work for trusts me.

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Challenge #5

In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your wishlist if you feel comfortable doing so.

1. If you read and like any of my fics, please leave kudos and/or comments! I love both!

2. I also welcome any art, podfics, etc. on any of my fics. If anything inspires you I love seeing how people interpret my stuff into new works. Please provide me with a link to the work so I can add it to the fic and boost it! My transformative works policy is on my profile page; if you're interested in podficcing, please see my additional notes re podfics.

3. And most importantly, I wish for more justice, kindness, and peace in the world.

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Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Shout-out to everyone engaging with and creating fanworks for the forgotten things.

To fans of under-represented characters and/or ships! Thank you for creating this content!

To fans in small fandoms and/or old fandoms!
Forever Knight! - brightknightie still runs the fkficfest every year, and she and other wonderful writers like senmut and greerwatson and so many others write new and wonderful stories for this 1990s fandom every year, and do it with the greatest love.
Hey Arnold! - some of us are still engaging with and creating fanworks for this great Nickelodeon cartoon from the 1990s. We're more scattered around social media, less of a cohesive fandom, but we are still here and enjoying ourselves.
AtLA! - this show is 20 years old and so many of us are still here rewatching it and creating transformative works! I love us!
Star Trek! - even the original show from the 1960s is still huge, and there are new generations discovering it and loving it, but many of the so-called "fandom olds" are still here too, and continuing to love and enjoy their fandom.

Thank you!

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Challenge #1

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Happy New Year, snowflakes!

I'm lightbird here on dreamwidth, snarky_panda on AO3 (though I write everything under the "dramatic owl" pseud), dramaticowl on tumblr (yep, still on tumblr), and I'm dramaticowl on Bluesky/Blacksky. I'm a native New Yorker, still living in the city. I love swimming, reading, cats, and coffee, and I am not a morning person. I also sign up for too many bingo card challenges. Check out my profile page for my interests and other info, as well as my transformative works policy. I also have a master post of all my fanworks. I engage with fanworks and fandom content in a wide variety of fandoms, but I create works in a more limited set of fandoms. Most of my work is in AtLA, Hey Arnold!, Mulan (Disney 1998), and Quantum Leap, but I've dabbled in a couple of other fandoms here and there.

I've been participating in the snowflake_challenge since 2014. I love doing this challenge. It's fun and low-pressure, and it's always a great way to start the new year. The challenges are fun and help spark/re-spark my creativity, they get me thinking about how I want to move through the new year, and they are always encouraging. For the most part I write fic, but in past years these challenges have prompted me to try working with other media, as well as to explore new fandoms. It's also a great way to meet and talk to lovely new people, and to read all the posts and see how differently people might respond to a prompt.

I'm really excited about doing this challenge again this year and looking forward to seeing everyone else's responses. And here's hoping that 2026 is a kinder year for all of us.

I finished a few more projects, lol. And I'm getting the hang of blocking the canvas and doing the finishing stitch. Pics of a couple of things under the cut.

( finished works )

I also finished needlepointing a couple of coasters and ornaments, but still need to do the final finishing (backing, cording, etc.).

A bunch of the attorneys I work with want to commission me to make them key fobs now, lol. I told them I just needed them to cover cost of supplies -- I am not a professional at this.

I've been reading a lot of stuff for class, including articles and on-topic chapters from various books. But I also managed to finish some of my books in the past couple of months.

The City in Glass by Nghi Vo: I really enjoyed this fantasy novel about a demon and the city that she loves and considers hers. Nghi Vo is a favorite and this was so good. I loved the characters and the descriptions, and the worldbuilding was really topnotch.

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu: this is a re-read, inspired by brightknightie's mention of it in her post re new vampire media community. This book precedes Stoker's Dracula by 25 years or so, and while I do like Dracula better, this is a really interesting early sapphic vampire story and worth checking out.

What You Are Looking For is in the Library: by Michiko Aoyama: this was a nice read. Like Before the Coffee Gets Cold, this novel is a series of vignettes about different people who visit the same library, where they find books, etc. that change their lives. There is some interaction between people from different vignettes at times, but for the most part, each one is a standalone story about the particular character. The book is well-written and the individual stories are quite lovely and sweet. I actually decided to read this book because I liked the cat on the cover, lol, not because I had any idea what it was about. I'm leaning toward more plot-based fiction these days, so while I enjoyed this and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, I don't really need to read more of these types of books.

Up Next/Already Started Reading:

A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo: one of my favorite authors, this novella is #6 in the Singing Hills cycle.

The Double Tax by Anna Gifty Opoku Agyeman: discusses the "pink tax" on women generally, but focuses on the added costs for women of color, specifically Black women.

Wild Faith by Talia (now Tal) Lavin: an investigation into the rise of the Christian right, starting with the Satanic panic of the 1980s.

Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America by Michael Luo: what it says on the tin.

Japan at War: An Oral History by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F Cook: just started reading the intro. The authors interviewed Japanese people who lived through WWII and documented their stories. Their focus is on how they talk about it and how Japan addresses and acknowledges, if at all, the war and their role.

The City and its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami: his latest, and a counterpart to one of his earlier novels, which I read a long time ago.

I flopped last year. Here's hoping I do better this time, lol.

Episode Tags and Missing Scenes	Wabi / Sabi	Journalist / Chronicler	Midnight	Found Families
Sacrifice / Letting Go	Neutral Colours	Revelations and Concealments	Kinetic Energy	Information is given off the record
Street Food	Truth or Dare	Wild Card	Landscape/Panorama	Superpowers
Ritual Marks and Body Decorations	Slice of Life	Pre- Slash / Femslash / Het	Coffee Shop AU	If only you'd notice me: Yearning and obliviousness
Documentation	Hopelessly Devoted	Epistolary fic: Emails, letters etc.	Loss of Faith	Flesh and Bone